Gender Studies

Gender Studies

My decision to take the extracts from literary discourse to illustrate the differences between the male and female manner of writing was dictated by the fact that it is more interesting to search for such differences in this very discourse, then in scientific or newspaper, where there are strict rules of how to write (non-personal narration, non-emotiveness, usage of terms; laconic phrases, etc.)

In literary discourse one may write whatever one wishes.

(Jane Austen. Pride Prejudice)

After a week spent in professions of love and schemes of felicity, Mr Collins was called from his amiable Charlotte by the arrival of Saturday. The pain of separation, might be alleviated on his side, by preparations for the reception of his bride; as he had reason to hope, that shortly after his next return into the Hertfordshire, the day would be fixed that was to make him the happiest of men. He took leave of his relations at Longbourn with as much solemnity as before; wished his fair cousins health and happiness again, and promised their father another letter for thanks.

(F. Scott Fitzgelald. Tender is the Night)

Rosemary had another dinner date, a birthday party for a member of the company. Dick ran into a Collis Clay in the lobby, but he wanted to dine alone and pretended an engagement at the Excelsior. He drank a cocktail with Collis and his vague dissatisfaction crystallized as impatience - he no longer had an excuse for playing truant to the clinic. This was less an infatuation than a romantic memory. Nicole was his girl - too often he was sick at heart about her, yet she was his girl. Time with Rosemary was self-indulgence - time with Collis was nothing plus nothing.

Already from the structure of the passage it is visible which passage was written by a woman and which by a man. Austen writes the events without any consequence, together with her thoughts and comments, whereas Fitzgerald,